


Promise

by Mochas N Mayhem (KoohiiCafe)



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Torchwood
Genre: Children of Earth Compliant, Episode: s03e05 Children of Earth - Day 5, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-16
Updated: 2014-01-16
Packaged: 2018-01-08 23:57:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1139006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KoohiiCafe/pseuds/Mochas%20N%20Mayhem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ianto had made him promise once. Told him "I need you to promise me that, as long as I'm here, as long as there's us, that you'll always come back to me. Always."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Promise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [torchwoodteaboy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/torchwoodteaboy/gifts).



> **Title:** Promise  
>  **Author:** Koohii Cafe  
>  **Rating:** General Audiences  
>  **Crossover:** Torchwood  
>  **Disclaimer:** Since I am a poor chickadee with no wealth to speak of, I think it's safe to say that Torchwood isn't mine.  
>  **Written for:** [torchwoodteaboy](http://archiveofourown.org/users/torchwoodteaboy)  
>  **Summary:** _Ianto had made him promise once. Told him "I need you to promise me that, as long as I'm here, as long as there's_ us _, that you'll always come back to me._ Always _."_  
>  **Author's notes:** Set at the end of Children of Earth. Inspired by [torchwoodteaboy](http://archiveofourown.org/users/torchwoodteaboy).

"Are you ever coming back, Jack?"

So eager, so earnest, big eyes looking up at him in the dark of the night, but the color was off. The Welsh vowels familiar, but the pitch wrong. Hope, desperation, shining clear in her gaze, and behind her words, he heard an echo of another voice. Upset, rather than hopeful, but just as needful, just as desperate. It had been a turning point, as this was now. Time hung in the balance, waiting on the answer, because from that answer, the universe would split and decide its path.

Leave. Stay. These were the choices laid out before him. Choices he'd faced before. An echo.

" _Would you have gone with him? If he'd asked again?_ " Beautiful, such beautiful blue eyes, and there was hurt writ in them. Jealousy, even, and deeper, fear. Fear of loss. Of what the answer might be.

There was fear growing in Gwen's eyes too. Now. In the present. But the past pressed forward, overwriting his vision, his hearing, and the eyes were blue again, the voice deeper.

" _I know what you want me to think your answer is going to be here, but I need more than that, Jack. I want you to promise._ "

Not just an answer, a _promise_. He'd wanted so much, _so much_ , and yet so little from Jack, and it had hurt then too. Always cursed with the knowledge that it would end someday. In light of that knowledge, Jack never made promises. But he'd pressed, pushed, and he'd even done it in a way that he'd known was bearable. Phrased it as a promise Jack could keep.

" _I need you to promise me that, as long as I'm here, as long as there's_ us _, that you'll always come back to me._ Always."

It had hurt. The careful phrasing. The need for the promise itself. But in the end, his answer had been given. A promise had been made, and Time had chosen its course. And now, there was another question. Waiting for him to answer. Waiting for- not for a promise, but for hope.

Jack had no more hope left to give.

"What for?"

Time split. His promise fulfilled. Jack ran.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Author's Notes:** The line that was the inspiration for this piece, " _I need you to promise me that, as long as I'm here, as long as there's_ us _, that you'll always come back to me._ Always." was written by [torchwoodteaboy](http://archiveofourown.org/users/torchwoodteaboy), as was the line, " _I know what you want me to think your answer is going to be here, but I need more than that, Jack._ " She writes a fantastic Ianto Jones, and I am so grateful to get to write against her.


End file.
